Just as it had earlier, Blue’s yell caused chaos. The giant winged dinos dove to avoid her voice despite anything their riders did with their reins. As they dove, the League jet circled around from over Grand Lake to appear behind us even as we dove to follow.

“I’m thinking we should use Blue to herd them,” the Rocket said. “If they stay low, it shouldn’t be hard to hit them from the side.”

There’s only one thing I’m better for in a fight than being a distraction, and that’s a weapon of mass destruction, but this wasn’t the time for a WMD.

I roared toward the flying dino, light flashing on my front to keep me in the air and from the bottoms of my feet and hand to keep me moving forward. With each flash of light came an accompanying pop or explosive booming noise.

I sounded like the Fourth of July—the end of the fireworks display when they’re sending off everything they have left.

The Rocket turned around at the sound of her voice. “I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with the original League defeating them the last two times. They did such a good job that the invaders feel like they have to crush us first.”

He cocked his head to the side. “It’s kind of cool in a way. For some value of cool that might include bombings.”

He typed on his keyboard, moved more text over from what must have been logs into another window. “Okay, I’m sending what I’ve got to the Feds, but we’ve got to find the League’s records on these guys. If they’re who I think they are, search under ‘dinosaurs,’ ‘evolution,’ or ‘gorillas.’”

Distant sirens grew louder, and I decided that I ought to start paying attention to the world around me again. The sirens meant that the police were on their way to pick up Jillian, Hank, Latoya, and Andronicus.

Checking around the area, all four of them lay on the ground, none of them showing any sign of The Thing That Eats. To judge from what happened to Andronicus the first time, they might be out for quite a while.

He was a special case though as he’d been controlled for hundreds of years, but he could also regenerate. Maybe for people who’d been controlled for a short time, but couldn’t regenerate, it would even out? Continue reading Harvest: Part 17→

Whatever sorcery had created the Graffiti Knight’s staff, it worked against The Thing That Eats. He hit it, and with every hit, the Thing That Eats deflated a little more and the embodied ghosts faded.

With the last hit, any remains of The Thing disappeared, leaving Necromancer bruised, bloodied and unconscious. In that same blow, all the ghosts disappeared.

From behind me, I heard the sound of a seatbelt clasp clicking open. After a few footsteps, Rod pushed his way to the front between Amy and me.

“Hey,” Cassie said, but Rod ignored her.

“The Graffiti Knight. Rumor in the magical community is that the Council got some guy to wear that armor. I heard that it’s cursed or connected to an old god or something. There’s a price for using it, so they only get it out for emergencies.”